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Dear Angie
Dear Angie
I get many questions about making courses more enjoyable for students and increasing their learning while also improving the instructor’s class performance. I asked my colleagues at Lethbridge for help with this column. They provided excellent answers to your questions for Dear Angie.
Dear Angie:
I just started teaching Accounting Theory and I think my students are bored with the class. So far I have just lectured and tried to generate discussion. The students are required to write papers on the topics we cover. I am not getting good student evaluations. Help!!!
Buffaloed in BC
Dear Buffaloed:
One of my colleagues is an excellent instructor who has taught Accounting Theory many times. Toni Nelson uses a debate format for her accounting theory class because “the best way to learn and understand is to research both sides of an issue”. In addition, debates can require students to defend positions they don’t agree with. This forces the students to research and understand positions they might otherwise ignore. Toni also has her students write position papers on two of the debate topics. Each side in the debate forwards their reference list to the rest of the class. Those students choosing to write a paper on that debate use the reference list to research their own positions on the topic.
Toni allows students to hand in rough drafts of their position papers. She provides guidance on areas needing improvement, such as organizational problems, weak arguments, and points that are not clear or not supported by evidence. Students can then strengthen their papers before turning them in for final grading. Toni is big on learning; not on earning grades.
The final exam in this class is based on an article or news story from the business press. Students must use the theories from the course to explain, interpret, or critique current events and news.
This sounds like a good class format that forces students to be involved actively, even when they are not part of the presentation. I hope some this may help you better design your theory class.
Dear Angie:
I am going to use groups in one of the accounting classes I teach next year and I am not sure how to form the groups. Any advice?
Wondering in Windsor
Dear Wondering:
Deb Jarvie is an instructor at the U of L who does an amazing job designing, implementing, and using groups in her introductory financial and introductory management accounting courses. Her process for forming groups and for managing the class and the group process works very well. Deb consistently receives some of the highest student evaluations in our faculty.
Step 1: Deb’s classes are interactive, with communication among the students and between the students and the instructor a major part of the pedagogical process. She starts each semester with a discussion to form class room norms. This exercise leads students to the understanding that each person will respect everyone else in the class (including the instructor). She ensures that students understand only one person at a time will speak in the class or within a group discussion.
Step 2: During the first week of class, Deb allows students to e-mail her the names of anyone that they would and/or would not like to work with. Based on this input, Deb tries to form groups honouring the students’ wishes.
Step 3: Once groups are formed, part of a class is spent defining group objectives and norms. The students prepare a contract, based on the agreed objectives and norms, for each group member to sign.
Step 4: Deb spends the remainder of the class getting students to share some of their best and worst group experiences. She ensures that the lessons of these experiences are made very clear, so that students learn to build on the best experiences avoid repeating the worst.
Step 5: At semester’s end, each student must evaluate the other members of their group and report their evaluations to the instructor. The individual’s group assignment marks are weighted by their peer evaluations.
Dear Angie:
Does anyone have some interesting exercises to liven up an audit class?
Soulful at Saint Mary’s
Dear Soulful:
One of our audit instructors, Lori Kopp, shared a great classroom experience from her introductory audit class. She uses this exercise at the class following a midterm, telling the students that they don’t need to prepare anything for the class. The exercise is based on a case, Sounds Great Incorporated, written by Steve Salterio of Queen’s. It is available from Waterloo’s Centre for Accounting Ethics free of charge if you acknowledge copyright. You can order it at www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/ACCT/ethics/cases.htm.
The case is designed for an in-class, role playing exercise. Three separate fact scenarios are provided for auditors, CFOs, and Audit Committees respectively. The current case addresses a dispute between auditors and management that is now in the hands of the Audit Committee. The disputed issue concerns the timing of revenue recognition and associated expenses under a new pricing policy for a combined extended warranty/product sales. However, instructors can adapt the case facts to incorporate different accounting issues.
Lori asks for volunteers to be auditors and CFOs (using seven of each based on her class size of 35). The rest of the class is on the Board’s Audit Committee. There is a separate fact scenario for each of three groups.
The class then spends 20-30 minutes in group discussion. The auditor and CFO groups meet separately to discuss how they will present their case to the Audit Committee. Meanwhile, the Audit Committee determines what additional information they need to make their decision.
After the discussion ends, Lori forms the class into seven groups. Each group has one auditor and one CFO plus some of the Audit Committee members. The auditor and CFO in each group present their cases to the Audit Committee. The Audit Committee questions both the auditor and the CFO and then ranks the arguments of each on an 11-point scale. The lower end of the scale tends to support the Management position; the mid point of the scale suggests uncertainty, and the high end of the scale tends to support the auditor position. The Audit Committee justifies their rankings and hands it in to Lori.
At the following class, Lori shares the results. Part of the class is used for further discussion and summarization of the case results. Lori says that this case always stimulates excellent class discussion and is a good learning experience.
That’s all for now. I hope to see you at the CAAA Conference in Vancouver. Meanwhile, please think about some of the great things you do in your classrooms. Then email Dear Angie so we can share our expertise. Send them to angela.downey@uleth.ca.
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